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Perhaps it was the mess of that first kill which had led me to select the axe as my primary weapon. I was more than proficient with a sword, even better with a bow. But the axe… I could make it do things that terrified beings on this continent, this realm, and far beyond.
I could slash it at an angle, cleaving my opponent’s head from their body. Or bring the blade downward and bury it in their chest—no finesse was required for such a kill, the blunt damage of the brutal weapon doing most of the work. Fighting close, I could feel the crunch of bones as they yielded to my blade, sense it as the lifeblood of one immortal warrior or another ebbed away to nothing.
But on those days when the killing made my stomach turn instead, I could throw it across a battlefield. I could inflict death on those too far away to even see me properly. I could choose to be the face of justice or its silent coconspirator.
Today, I was neither.
Today, I was a prince and a future king.
My growl of disgust was muffled by the knock on my door, in the same moment as the inlaid wooden handle slipped from my hand.
The thump of the axe nestling itself in wood was apparently all the invitation that Gwen needed to enter.
One look at her had me stomping across the room to retrieve it.
“I see you’ve finished dressing,” she observed drolly. “Here I thought that I might offer you help with your vestments.”
I growled.
She’d traded her usual gray wool vest and linen undershirt for much finer versions. The dress she wore was still wool, despite the heat, but the emerald green had been marbled with various other earthly shades to bring movement to the otherwise stiff garment. The hem fell to the floor, though wide slits were cut up the front and back—I presumed for air flow.
I’d never seen her in anything but trousers.
Against her skin she wore an underdress of a thin, slightly shimmering golden fabric that highlighted the warmth in her dark brown skin. She looked regal—like the queen she’d been meant to be. Except instead of a crown, she wore a simple gold braid circlet.
Gold and emerald. The colors of her dead betrothed.
King Arthur.
This was her offering ensemble, I realized.
Hers, not mine.
This was what she would have worn when she walked across the goldstone throne room, kneeled before the priestesses, and pledged to fulfill the arrangement made by the Ancestors to preserve peace in Annwyn forevermore.
Beside her, I looked like exactly what I was—a rough warrior ill-suited to politics and ruling. I was built for killing. I’d known it since I was eleven years old.
The power that thrummed in my veins—both flora and fauna—had never been seen before. I could command the trees and grass, bend any plant within a hundred yards to my will. My vines were as lethal as my blade, choking the breath from an adversary or holding them in place until I could strike the death blow.
But I could also shift. When I did, it was not into the graceful lion that the female before me embodied even in her fae form. Mine was a beast of death.
Gwen waited until I’d launched my axe across the room once again. There was a lack of targets in the rooms I’d been assigned, and I’d already destroyed the frame of one historical painting. At least my aim was good enough that it was only the frame, rather than the art itself, that was in splinters.
“I brought you something,” she said.
I said nothing, crossing the room to retrieve my axe.
“It is from your mother.”
I paused with my fingers curled around the handle.
I had not seen my mother since before King Arthur’s murder. Before the series of events that had set my life upon this path. Nor had there been time for me to return north to Eilean Gayl before fulfilling my duty as the new Heir of the Terrestrial Fae.
During all that time, Gwen had been at Wolf Bay.
“How?” I said, shoving the axe roughly into the holster on my belt. I doubted I would ever feel comfortable walking the halls of the goldstone palace without it.
“She brought it to Wolf Bay.”
